


That Felt Real

by fuck_you_kylo



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Poor Kylo, pre-existing relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 13:41:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6155491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuck_you_kylo/pseuds/fuck_you_kylo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo is having a dissociative episode and Hux has to figure out how to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Felt Real

**Author's Note:**

> This was one of the kiss memes on tumblr, prompt was "a desperate kiss." One of my new-ish headcanons I’m still teasing out is that Kylo has some form of depersonalization disorder, probably as a result of PTSD from Snoke’s abuse, so I decided to play around with that.

Just before dawn one morning, Hux felt Ren get up and turn on the bathroom light, which was a little irritating but not unusual. _Close the door before you turn on the light, will you?_ He thought sleepily, sure Ren would hear. He glanced up at the clock projected on the ceiling, out of habit, and saw it read 4:56. Another hour and four minutes of rest. He dozed off easily.  
When Hux woke again, he reached out to toss an arm over Ren but found the bed still empty. He looked up at the clock. 5:35. He rolled over onto his stomach, a little concerned, and saw a strip of light still under the bathroom door. He got up and knocked at the door with one knuckle.  
“Ren? Is everything alright?”  
He heard a muffled “Come in,” and opened the door. Ren was leaning one hand against the sink and staring intently at the other hand.  
“What the hell are you doing? Are you sick?” Hux demanded.  
“Not sick.”  
“Fantastic. Do you care to tell me what’s going on, or should I try to salvage my last twenty minutes of sleep?” Ren was silent a moment before tearing his eyes away from his hand to look at Hux. His face looked blank but Hux wondered if there was a bit of fear in his eyes.  
“Something’s happening to me. I’m thinking and feeling things, but they feel like I’m reading them off someone else. It’s like I’m a Force Ghost, watching myself from the outside, looking down from the ceiling.” His voice was flat and unmodulated by emotion, the way it sounded through his mask even though his face was bare.  
Hux frowned. “How can you tell they’re your thoughts then?”  
“Because they match what I’m feeling. They’re obviously mine, but it feels the same as when I get impressions of what you’re going through. They’re external; they’re second-hand.”  
“Has this happened before?”  
“Yes. Not often.” He waited for more, but that was all Ren said. Hux attempted to assess the situation the way he would any other. Was this some Force nonsense, had Ren lost ownership of his own mind from spending too much time in others? Or was Ren just using the language from his Force experiences to describe some kind of brain glitch? Before he could properly form another question, Ren spoke again, urgently this time:  
“Can you find my lightsaber?”  
“What? Why?”  
“I need you to hold onto it until this passes. I’m not in control. Hide it from me.” Hux thought about pointing out that “out of control” was more or less Ren’s default, but thought better of it when an image of dead children lying in muddy grass flickered through his head, coming from Ren, who was leaning both hands against the sink now and staring into the basin. He brushed a hand briefly over Ren’s shoulder and walked back out to the bedroom, where the long black robe was draped over a chair. He retrieved the saber from one of the deep pockets and opened up the small safe in his closet, which was primarily meant for launch codes but also contained a few bits of personal memorabilia. The safe was designed to be all but impenetrable to ordinary humans, but Hux wondered how it would stand up against a mentally unstable Force user, which, he realized uncomfortably, was what Ren was, at least right now. He placed the saber handle inside and shut the safe.  
“Ren.” He looked up from his place at the sink. From the other side of the room, Hux thought he could see the shine of a tear in Ren’s eye, but the rest of his face stayed blank.  
Hux owed much of his professional success to his composure and presence of mind in crisis situations, but now he felt at a loss. He wasn’t so foolish as to make it a universal rule, but he did believe that most problems could be solved by completing a thorough and dispassionate assessment of the situation, then laying out a fact-based argument as to the best course of action. Up until this point, the exceptions to that rule were easy enough to dismiss as emotional nonsense best kept to oneself. Which, of course, is what Ren’s situation was. The difference being…  
Hux walked back over to the bathroom and gently detached Ren from his grip on the sink, one hand, then the other, and sat him down on the edge of the bathtub. He sat down next to him and took a breath, getting ready to explore completely new conversational territory.  
“What helped you when this happened before? What can I do?”  
“I don’t know. I’ve always been alone when it happened before. I wanted you to stay asleep. It usually passes after a few hours, but,” his lip twitched, “it’s not a pleasant few hours.”  
Hux nodded and felt out his next words carefully: “Can you tell me more about the other times?”  
Ren’s voice hitched when he said “I can’t—” and just like that Hux was kissing him, teasing out the tension in those lips that had been working so hard to stay steady, wrapping his fingers in Ren’s hair then guiding his head where he wanted it, and Ren kissed him back, too, pouring what little he had left of himself into Hux, seeking refuge. Hux felt it. _You can stay and rest in my head while yours doesn’t feel like home. It’s safe here, and you are welcome._ Ren made a soft, sad little noise and pulled back. Hux raised his eyebrows slightly and searched his face.  
“Did that help?”  
“That felt real.”


End file.
